Legg Lake Vid from the Air

[properchopper]

Some of boats noisier than others

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPt0rPqkPjc

[Ken Haines]

Great Video Tony,
Was really fun for me and my family to watch.
I have wondered lately if we finally have the technology to have a
full video of a heat racing event. It has always seemed to me that a
race video should show the entire course so that viewers can easily
follow the entire heat of racing action and be able to tell the results.
Can one of these drones positioned directly above the pond capture
the entire course ?

Just thinking of how to draw in new spectators to our hobby.
I am sure for every 100 spectators or so we get at least some
people interested in joining the hobby.

Probably time that we all put on our thinking caps in a realistic
attempt to reinvigorate this hobby.

Your thoughts ?

[properchopper]

Great Video Tony,
Was really fun for me and my family to watch.
I have wondered lately if we finally have the technology to have a
full video of a heat racing event. It has always seemed to me that a
race video should show the entire course so that viewers can easily
follow the entire heat of racing action and be able to tell the results.
Can one of these drones positioned directly above the pond capture
the entire course ?

Just thinking of how to draw in new spectators to our hobby.
I am sure for every 100 spectators or so we get at least some
people interested in joining the hobby.

Probably time that we all put on our thinking caps in a realistic
attempt to reinvigorate this hobby.

Your thoughts ?

Ken,

The vid was from a guy whose intention was to do commercial vids. Next time He'd charge. I'm close to pulling the trigger on a GoPro with a 170 degree lens which would capture an entire sprint course while stationary.

Most LHS's these days have a vid playback display from some product or the store itself. Might help promote FE race participation if a race loop runs. (especially in the Ltd categories) now that a RtR can get podiums without much sweat. Hmmmmm.........

[Fluid]

I'm sure for every 100 spectators.....

Nope. We've tried this kind of thing for many years with almost zero success. My old club had a 100' pond set up at large boat shows, handed out many hundreds of flyers, put videos in local stores - and maybe got one call for info - no new members!

We finally gave up up and put up a web page. That has been more successful but still we struggle.....in a city of four million. Good luck but don't expect much.



.

[properchopper]

Nope. We've tried this kind of thing for many years with almost zero success. My old club had a 100' pond set up at large boat shows, handed out many hundreds of flyers, put videos in local stores - and maybe got one call for info - no new members!

We finally gave up up and put up a web page. That has been more successful but still we struggle.....in a city of four million. Good luck but don't expect much.



.

I'm in agreement. The way (the only way) we got SOCAL FE Club going was to hit the lake EVERY weekend (or pretty close) and personally talk newbies that showed up into gearing up for racing. Built them boats too. I haven't been hitting the lake as frequently now so membership is thinning [ Plus 4 members moved out of state and one to the Sky].

[RandyatBBY]

We see a lot of people coming and going. It is some new and this year a lot of old core people. We lost Jim Wilson recently, RIP. But having the FE, Nitro and gas run on the same venue makes our district strong. Points racing really helps keep the interest.

[T.S.Davis]

There does seem to be a cycle. Racers come and go. We have some new guys this year too but some guys we expected to continue racing have bailed for various reasons.

We've done combined races too. Thinking being that we might interest some cross over. Didn't happen. That was years ago though. They're more accepting and our equipment has gotten better since then.

Up in Burton, a news paper reporter was out to interview some of us. Not one extra human from that.

We had a news film crew at the NATS. No new guys from that either. Pretty small market though.

I've even done radio interviews.

We have managed to land a few new guys through our affiliation with the Elks lodge but most of them seem to like coming out to just watch us acting a fool.

I don't have an answer but it seems that the only thing that has an impact here is being helpful. When a curious guys show up at the pond, answer every question a guy can dream up. Loan a guy a prop to try. Look at setups for foibles. I've even built boats for guys that were very interested but have never built a boat. I'm like a boat/drug dealer in that regard.......first one's on me. haha

[Peter A]

We get the same problems here in NZ too. This Easter we held our National champs, a small affair, 12 competitors and twelve events over two days. By some random good fortune one of the local weekly rags did an article and put a picture of our club presidents' twin nitro rigger on the front page. We ended up with around 300ish people coming through the venue over the two days. We even made over $400 from the donation/entry tin which is a gold coin ($1,$2). One chap even turned up on the Saturday with the picture cut out of the paper of the twin rigger asking when is this boat racing. "tomorrow mate", "I'll be back to watch it".
We have gained a couple of new members since. We run run Petrol, Nitro and FE. Our club day racing is all open events, i.e.
Open electric
Open mono
Open tunnel
Open hydro
P1 thunderboat (specific class)
King of the lake (10 laps)
20 min enduro (offshore style boats, no hydros)
With the exception of open electric and P1 thunderboat, you can race any power mode.
This is all working pretty well for us, but all the usual people problems exist. Some new members, while others fade away. However we are managing to keep a fairly active club going. It really helps having a permanent place to be, with a set course, drivers stand, hot pit area and container in a new growing industrial area close to the city and in a growth area.
Check out the Bay Of Plenty Model Powerboat Club on facebook for some drone footage